AN ANGRY rector has provoked a row by “devoutly hoping” an MP loses his seat for describing rioting thugs as “a***holes”.

The Rev Neil Richardson said he was horrified to read that Bob Russell, Lib Dem MP for Colchester, had used “the vile and offensive term” in a letter to a national newspaper.

Mr Russell had been contacted by the paper in the hope he would criticise tough sentences being handed out by courts to looters last month.

When it failed to print his thoughts, he sent them to the paper’s letters page.

He wrote: “I said that those who rioted are a***holes and when it comes to sentencing them I am probably to the right of many Conservatives.” Mr Richardson, the rector of Greenford Magna, near Uxbridge, Middlesex, was so upset he wrote his own letter to Mr Russell and a copy to Colchester’s local paper.

He wrote: “I was horrified to read an MP using such offensive language. The use of such a vile and offensive term to describe your fellow human beings is disgusting, disgraceful and, above all, shows a total lack of professional skill.”

The vicar pointed out what he said was the irony of a Lib Dem using such a term when his party had broken election pledges. He said: “I devoutly hope that at the next election the voters will see you for what you are: unprincipled and opportunistic politicians without an ounce of integrity or truthfulness.”

Mr Russell replied that the vicar was “completely out of touch”. He then discovered that his critic was a former Labour councillor for Ealing, west London, which suffered badly in the riots.

He said: “It’s interesting the dear comrade vicar failed to mention this in his letter.

“I’ve now written back to the Red Rector to chastise his lack of openness. That’s where the question of integrity lies.”